


And who is the man?

by BlueMoonRoses



Series: Who is the monster, and who is the man? [2]
Category: Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
Genre: Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2020-01-07 05:40:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18404240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueMoonRoses/pseuds/BlueMoonRoses
Summary: I just remembered that Victor dropped out of medical school in like, his freshman year, just to make a dude and that honestly explains a lot about him tbh.





	And who is the man?

**Author's Note:**

> I just remembered that Victor dropped out of medical school in like, his freshman year, just to make a dude and that honestly explains a lot about him tbh.

The creature remembers his first moments of life with startling clarity.

He remembers the bright aftershocks of electricity coursing through his limbs, the loud shuddering breath dragging air into his out of practice lungs, the way everything in the cluttered workroom was disorienting to take in.

He remembers the bright, intense _something_ that threatened to burn him from the inside out the first time he laid eyes on Victor.

How he was drawn to the man like a moth to the flame.

How he ached to reach out to touch, to make sure that Victor was real, to anchor himself from becoming overwhelmed. The creature reached out, and that spurred the golden haired man into action, turning from the creature and fleeing the room with fear in his eyes.

Something soured in his chest as he stared at where Victor had been, and it raged against the bright intensity.

The creature was alone.

***

_Who is the monster, and who is the man?_

For the first several months of his life, the creature thought of himself as the monster, but desperately wanted to be a man. Every time he saw his reflection, he would flinch back from the unnatural color of his eyes; a gray so pale they were nearly white and that, along with the strange texture of his deathly pale patchwork skin, marked him as inhuman. The way people would look at him in fear every time he so much as stepped out of the shadows, as if he were something else entirely.

Something that wasn’t a man.

And then, at some point, his perspective changed; the creature was a man despite his outward appearance, and Victor Frankenstein was the monster, the wolf in sheepskin.

***

One thing he’d come to quickly understand about Victor Frankenstein, is that the man never thinks things through.

How he’ll latch onto an idea because it either intrigues him or it presents some sort of challenge. It infuriates the creature to no end, because how could someone so intelligent be so _reckless?_ So _uncaring?_

It leaves him baffled and fuming, because the creature cares _too much;_ whether that’s a positive or a negative, he’ll leave open to interpretation.

But the important thing here is Victor’s apparent inability to plan ahead, which explains how he managed to follow after the creature to the North Pole so quickly. The creature hadn’t even considered the man might be unprepared to deal with the harsh north, that the man might half starve and nearly freeze himself to death just to follow after.

With how long they’d been playing this game of cat and mouse, he really should’ve seen this coming.

It had never really crossed the creature’s mind that Victor could die, despite how often he threatened to end the man’s life.

Some foolish part of him had believed that Victor would somehow always be around, forever unchanging.

***

The creature never hated Victor, not truly.

It’s just unfortunate that this realization only came when he thought the man was lost to him forever. The intense, painful thing behind his ribs had never been hate at all; the creature has loved Victor right from the first breath.

He loves him, but they’ve both hurt each other, over and over again. And it’s with quiet horror that his actions, the people he’s killed, comes to the forefront of his mind; the innocent lives he’d taken in anger and loneliness… there’s no excuse for it. He’d been hurting and he wanted to hurt back, but there’s no real justification for any of it.

His emotions run too deep, too wild, and he lashed out in the worst ways possible.

So now here he sits, by Victor’s bedside as the ship rocks, on its way back to the land of the living and away from the grays and whites of the Arctic.

***

Most of his waking hours are divided between reading and calming Victor when his dreams become too much.

One minute he’ll be reading the Hunchback of Notre Dame, the next he’s running his fingers through gold spun hair while Victor mumbles incoherently, twitching in fits and starts at whatever dream he’s having.

***

The ship docks in a French port in the early morning, but Captain Walton allows them to wait until night has fallen before departing.

The creature is unsure of where to go once they leave the ship; returning to Geneva is always an option, but… far too many bad memories there, all caused by the both of them. Perhaps it’s for the best if they don’t go back. Not yet at least.

 _He might feel differently about that,_ the creature thinks, glancing down at Victor who is still as wrapped up in his dreams as he has been for days – pneumonia has taken its toll on the man.

And maybe, if Victor were awake, he’d tell the creature so, that he wanted to go home to Geneva. But he isn’t, so he can’t, which leaves the decision up to the creature, because he’s the only one left to care for the sick man. Well, that’s not entirely true; there’s still Ernest, but who knows where the young man is now after Victor left to chase after the creature.

With a contemplative sigh, the creature sets about gathering their meager belongings, things leftover from their supplies for the chase in the North Pole, and then bundling Victor into a thick coat and wrapped up in at least one blanket, thin as it is, in an attempt to keep the man warm while he sweats out the illness.

The creature still has no idea where they’ll go. Hopefully, once he starts them along, he’ll figure it out.

***

“Are you sure about this?” Captain Walton asks one last time, following him down the gangway.

The creature nods, pulling his hood lower with one hand to hide as much of his mottled skin as possible, and cradling Victor close to him with the other.

“He might still try to kill you.”

“Then I will die,” the creature answers, simply and honestly. If Victor still wishes him dead, then so be it; the creature would rather die than be subjected to loneliness again, or a world without Victor in it.

He turns back one final time to see the Captain looking at them with a thoughtful expression on his face. “Thank you, for everything.”

And then the creature and Victor disappear into the night.

***

They travel for days, going wherever the creature’s legs wander.

Victor is on the mend, but still so ill that he spends most of his time asleep instead of awake. The creature doesn’t need as much rest or food, so the time from the French port to somewhere along Italy’s coastline isn’t very long at all.

He doesn’t stop walking until he comes across a small house set deep in the woods, up on a cliff by the sea, and the little old lady who lives there.

She isn’t frightened by his appearance, nor does she bat an eye at Victor’s state. Instead, she smiles warmly at the creature and invites him inside the house.

***

At first, the creature is confused.

Just absolutely baffled by the little old woman who calls him Angelo – at least, until he realizes that she seems to have mistaken him for her grandson. Either her eyesight is bad, or time has worsened her memory. But he allows this since she’s allowing him and Victor to stay.

The creature even plays along, calls her _nonnina,_ helps her around the house by doing the chores that she is far too frail to do herself anymore, and she looks after Victor when the creature is too busy to do so himself.

The time spent like this leaves him bittersweet, reminding him of the De Laceys.

But unlike the De Laceys, _nonnina_ does not fear his appearance, does not scream in terror at the sight of him. Instead, she teaches him how to make focaccia, and gives him another book to read when he has finally finished the Hunchback of Notre-Dame.

 _“Nonnina,_ this is a children’s story,” the creature says, holding up the book.

“I thought it might be a nice change from that other story you were reading, Angelo,” she replies. “And your friend might appreciate hearing something a little more light hearted.”

***

Despite his earlier doubt, the creature finds himself enthralled by the fairy tale about the little mermaid who falls in love with a prince, and so utterly entranced by the illustrations that for the first time in his life, the creature has the urge to draw.

There’s a blank journal in their belongings, but whether it originally belonged to the creature or to Victor, he cannot tell.

The creature draws everything he can; the trees, the sea, the bird that likes to sing outside the kitchen window, _nonnina._

But mostly, it’s filled with drawings of Victor, both as he is now and memories of how he used to be.

***

The pneumonia passed a while ago.

Now it’s just Victor’s body recovering from the fever.

***

It’s only been a few weeks since _nonnina_ let them stay, and already she is leaving.

Apparently for good.

“My sister does not want me to be so far away any longer,” she tells him. She tells him about how she sent most of her belongings to Florence ahead of her, which explains why the small house has been so empty and bare of decorations. “And I’m far too old to make the journey back here.”

She motions for him to come closer, and when he bends down far enough, she places a kiss on his forehead and pats his cheek. “I’ll miss you, Angelo.”

“I’ll miss you too, _nonnina.”_

She smiles fondly at him.

“Take care of your friend.”

“I will.”

And then she’s gone.

***

The house is quiet, when it’s just him and a still recovering Victor.

The man is awake more often, but not for very long. Easily exhausted from the amount of energy it took to fight off the illness; there had been a couple of times where the creature had feared he would not pull through it.

He reads the fairy tale, about how the little mermaid makes a deal with a sea witch, how she loses her tongue and voice, and how she suffers in silence when the prince marries someone else, knowing that she will soon die. The creature is tense with anticipation when he reaches the part where the sisters give the little mermaid a knife, telling her how she can save herself.

But what really captures him is when she doesn’t, how she’d rather die than live in a world without her love.

It’s a wonder that a tragic story can have a happy ending of any kind.

***

It’s only when Victor is finally awake and sitting by his side on the sand that the creature realizes how deep his affections for this man run.

Yes, he knew he loved Victor, but the urge to run his rough fingers through gold spun hair, to press and hold the other man close, really drives it home.

He loves him. He loves Victor with every breath, and he loves him more and more with every moment that passes, so much so he’s surprised that his ribs don’t break from the pressure of it alone.

And it seems that Victor is admitting that he feels the same. Or at least, the potential to feel the same.

The creature finds himself desperately hoping that this won’t end in sea foam as he finally gives in and gently pulls the other man close.

_Who is the monster, and who is the man?_

Two sides of the same coin, utterly inseparable.

**Author's Note:**

> Listen, I know that The Hunchback of Notre-Dame was published in 1831, and The Little Mermaid in 1837, quite a few decades after the events of Frankenstein, but we're just going to ignore that just like we're ignoring the actual ending of Frankenstein.


End file.
